Lycos, the long forgotten search engine and portal (remember them?), has regained the rights to use the trademarked brand names “Lycos” and “Hotbot” inside Europe. Previously Lycos Europe was a Bertelsmann-Telefonica owned entitiy which operated under license in Europe. Lycos Europe paid $5.2 million in 2007 for this arrangement in fact. But at its AGM on May 31 it ruled that it would to sell the license back to the US Lycos. Still with me?
Jungwook Lim, CEO of Lycos Inc in the US (a subsidiary of Korean Internet giant Daum Communications), says they plan to “revitalize and strengthen our search businesses within Europe…” with, says Edward Noel, General Manager of Search and Business Development “locally targeted content verticals.” Of course, most Europeans have long forgotten Lycos – although it still has small traction in Germany.
But no-one seems to have noticed a small matter. Google is powering their search engine these days. So quite what Lycos thinks it can bring to the party remains a mystery.